Bonds between friends and enemies
by Captain-Creeper
Summary: "So Neo..." Yang starts, just to get a slight turn of the head. "Can you really not talk?" Cinder was passing by and joins the conversation. "A beowolf got her as a kid, managed to sever her vocal cords, Roman's the only reason she is still alive, also Ru
1. Chapter 1

I often wonder where to start a new story, so this one will start in the middle…

"Watch out Neo!" Yang yells, unable to get to her quick enough, luckily Ruby managed to use her semblance to grab Neo and yank her aside just as a deathstalker nearly claimed the injured girl's life. I just kinda sit here, and continue slicing at all sorts of creatures with my claymore. Very lightweight claymore at that, the only reason it is cleaving these things in half would be the fact that more than sixty percent of my aura is infused into this blade. Glyphs are present along both the blade and shaft, mainly for show save the one on the bottom of the hilt and the two that mirror each other along the blade. Life had been rough for us since the incident, but now we're a family, been this way for a year. Weiss thrusts her rapier into a beowolf, but it missed the vital organs, and it swatted at her. It would have made contact had it not been stopped by a kick from Mercury, followed by a swift severing of both arms in combination of Ruby's scythe on the left, and Emerald's small sickles on the right. Blake falls from a tree due to a smaller, younger goliath, the size of a small car, ramming said tree. She is caught by the handle of Roman Torchwick's cane and then pulled towards him, good thing too since a pack of beowolves pounced where she would have been had Roman not saved her.

"God damn all these things!" Cinder stabs her glass swords through two beowolf masks while Roman and Blake work together to take down a pair of ursa, and Neo rests in a clearing guarded by Yang, who won't let a single grimm get close enough to touch her. Of note would be the fact no one has fired a bullet, nor used dust. Take a guess at what that means…

"Ruby, two to the right, four on the left, take your pick" Cinder steps up to Ruby, her weapons resting at her side. Ruby dashes off towards the two on the right, meeting the beowolves head on, and Cinder smiles and moves towards the four beowolves, both slaying their targets with ease. After a good fifteen minutes the hordes and hordes of grimm seemed to die off.

Two years ago, everything was fine. I was living in the Vale Residential district...

I woke up dazed, a bit annoyed, and greatly angered. In a practiced ease I got up and approached my closet, taking out the next set of clothes for today. I slip into my favorite gray shirt, decorated with randomized red lines which appear as stitches across my body and back. I had a taste for the dark in my clothing, things that looked gothic or disturbing to some. I put on my black jeans, with a deep bloody red running along the outside that follows the bone perfectly. Then I find my weapon, Oathbreaker. Wonderful sword, lovely sharp deadly claymore. Made of pure silver fused with obsidian at my father's forge when we were making our own weapons for Signal. The glyphs carved into the blade aren't just for show. Well, three aren't. The small one on the hilt can use my aura for a quick short range teleportation spell, and the two on the blade convey aura, allowing for a slice to create a wave of energy, and a stab to release a pulse of directed aura for greater damage. I have a semblance I like to call Oculus. It's an enhancement of my visual processes by manipulating aura and my eyes, allowing me to take in all the details I see near instantly. After getting my stuff together I took a quick look in the mirror, which I usually forget to do yet I can't shake the feeling it might be the last time I do this, discovering that as usual, my gray hair was quite the mess. My blue eyes reflected off them and as usual I look pissed. Blame it on monday mornings. Taking a look out the window to see what awoke me was something I had not thought possible. Ever wake up like every other day, then look outside and see hell itself barking on your doorstep? It wasn't quite that way, hell would probably include more fire. A large grimm, a goliath, rampaging straight towards me. Utilizing my flash teleportation I managed to dodge the beast, my house however, not so much. There were much more than that, however, goliaths, beowolves, deathstalkers, seemed a whole damn apocalypse was in order. I ran away and took out my scroll, calling Beacon for help, and that's when I noticed the headline in the news. Vacuo and Mistral had also suffered grimm invasions of a catastrophic level. Just fucking great. Shoulda worked in Atlas, lot safer apparently. Turning around I noticed that the Beacon hunters were already here, and actively killing off the grimm, so I joined in. Some red cloaked girl was blazing through both grimm and ammo, as was a yellow headed girl who was utterly decimating them. Another girl with black hair was destroying them with a katana and it's sheath, and some white haired girl was stabbing and burning and freezing and impaling a lot of grimm. It was wonderful work they were doing. I was snapped back to reality by an ursa, who I stabbed several times. Several more times for good measure. Then I turned around in time to decapitate a beowolf running by, and then uppercut stlye slash a boarbatusk into the air. I could very well say this was a fun dream, till an ursa hit me and it stung like a bitch. A lot of running, slashing, and being joined by three unknowns and the dangerous Roman Torchwick as well as the Beacon team we were absolutely surrounded, and almost out of ammo.

"Well…" A quick use of Oculus revealed exactly how fucked we are. Judging by all the fragments of masks behind the grimm I saw in front of us we were viciously surrounded. At least one hundred plus full masks to our front, more on the edges of my vision. Even more past the hordes I can't see past.

"There is no way we're surviving a fight, all in favor of fleeing?"

"How?" The black haired lady in the red dress says.

"Less grimm on our left, clear a path and run like hell"

She grumbles, and everyone silently agrees. "Alright, fire away!"

We all face our left, The scythe girl fires, the white haired rapier user unleashes a torent of fire along with the red dress lady who also unleashes a ton of flames. The black haired girl with the bow turns her katana into a pistol and fires. The blonde haired girl fires explosive rounds from her gauntlets, the emerald haired girl fires rounds from twin revolver like guns, and Roman fires explosives from his cane. I release shockwaves, and the other gray haired guy sits back and waits, since he apparently has no ranged attacks. The way clears soon, and we as a group run through the sea of black as it starts to close around us. All that stood between us now was a gate designed to keep grimm out. It raised by itself, or so it seemed when a girl with a theme like neapolitan ice cream jumped out of the control booth and tagged along with us. Glancing back at Beacon and using Oculus I counted the number of smoke stacks. A lot of them, at least sixty. Probably more… Vale had fallen, and a buzz from my scroll showed that Atlas was also crumbling. Moments later the communication tower in Vale collapsed, and my scroll lost internet connection. We were all on our own…


	2. Chapter 2

[In all seriousness this story won't be updated as frequently as others since I have a hard time with apocalypse like scenarios. Have fun reading, and any explinations you require I will answer, unless the story is going to answer them later. Colonel out]

(Present Day)

"Out of curiousity, what's for dinner tonight?" I ask Neo, she had been limping badly since the battle yesterday, but she insisted to help me gather some plants we might be able to use, either as poisons against grimm, or spices to our food, or even medicinal herbs to help her aura speed up the natural regeneration. Since Neo doesn't talk she starts a game of charades, a common thing between us. She moves two arms around and acts like her hands are the heads of something, so I answer.

"The Taijutsu?"

She nods and I smile. Ahead of us now is a small cabin like structure, I'ts been repaired numerous times, and the windows have been broken out, then boarded up. The door was lacking hinges now, the previous owners weren't too kind to it before we came along, but none of us made an effort to fix it when it broke, so there's that. I push it open for Neo, and close it back when she makes it in. Once inside I then open the hatch to the basement, and go into it. It starts with a concrete room, pretty sturdy, then branches out into a hole made in the wall that becomes an elaborate tunnel system braced with wood every couple of feet so it wouldn't cave in. The tunnels led into rooms covered in wooden tiles and planks. We'd owned this lovely cabin for only two months but we did work efficiently. The kitchen was quite the walk, with a hole up to the surface so whoever did tonight's cooking didn't have the unfortunate ending of suffocation. It also drew grimm to that hole instead of our front doorstep. In time they got used to this and stopped hanging around the tender smell. Our dining room was connected to the kitchen, so Neo and I sat down at a large oak table in a oak chair. All of us were gathered here, waiting for our chef, tonight it was Weiss' turn, to cook some food. She slides down some rock made bowls filled with stew that included meat from a king taijutsu as well as assorted vegetables we were growing in a clearing away from here. Everyone was wearing versions of their original outfits, some more intact than others. The ripped and ruined parts were sewn up with leather from various grimm we've killed, no shortage of them.

"So, how bad is Neo's injury?" I ask Ruby, who helps Weiss and Mercury in medical situations.

"Well, her right leg was clawed up, she won't be able to fight for at least a week, so bad"

"Damn…" I hadn't noticed the new injury's defining mark. Out of all of us Neo always managed to get the worst injuries, and she had a lot before we joined up. No matter what though, she keeps bouncing back with some natural optimism no one else could grasp at.

(One day after the Vale incident)

We had hurried away from the smoldering remains of Vale, eager to put a lot of distance between us and the darkness. Being exhausted we all climbed our own tree, save the crazy color schemed icecream girl, who slept on a branch near Roman. I don't sleep often so I stayed up as a sentry. The decided sentry post was a large tree which I stayed on top of. Roman had also stayed awake. While we publicly knew him as a complete asshole who does nothing but rob pillage kill and maim, I saw a face of determination as he watched Neo sleep. At first I thought it was some creepy your mine face due to the dark hiding him, so I quickly used Oculus to check, the world lighting up for the mental picture taken in my mind. No, the face he had was one of protection, a face of a father determined not to let harm come to his child, though he and Neo didn't seem like blood related family, maybe she was adopted by him? Who knows. The night passed uneventfully and the blonde walked over to relieve me of duty.

"Hey, blondie"

"Yeah?" She sounded, like all of us, tired.

"What's your name?"

"My name is Yang, yours?"

"Niko Weaver"

"Since we're doing last names, Yang Xiao Long"

"So, you were hunters?"

"Freshmen at Beacon, you?"

"Hunter, worked in the less infested areas as a recon sweep"

"Get some rest, I'll take watch" She sounded even more exhausted than me.

"Sure" Instead of getting sleep I climbed up a different tree and also kept a lookout.

Eventually we both were relieved by that green haired girl, and I was actually tired by this point, having almost been twenty four hours, so I decided to get some sleep.

That morning we all had proper introductions.

"My name is Ruby Rose, and this is my scythe Crescent Rose" So that's what her name is, and the name of that scary scythe. Next.

"Blake Belladonna, ex member of the white fang" We already knew she was a faunus, that bow fell off during our escape. But ex white fang was unexpected.

"Weiss Schnee, member of team RWBY" So Weiss here is a member of the Schnee family, but doesn't state that, and she works with an ex white fang member. Maybe she disagrees with her family a lot.

"Yang Xiao Long" She still sounds exhausted, and also on edge.

"Cinder Fall, and henchmen" The woman in red says, pointing at our other companions.

"Mercury Black, Lady killer" The girls all rolled their eyes at the same time, like it was a cue, save Neapolitan, who was staring out towards the sun with one brown eye and one pink eye.

"Emerald Sustrai, thief"

"Roman Torchwick, gentleman, and Neopolitan, Neo for short" So, one letter off from the nickname I had for her, not bad, not bad. My turn.

"Niko Weaver, retired hunter" The reason I said I was retired was because I wouldn't be reporting into Vale anymore.

"Well, it's been fun, but we're going" Cinder just announced her presence, took her two henchmen and hurried away… Wonderful. Now we have three less in our group, but why did she stay for the introductions?

"Well, I think the first thing we should all do is look for a place to stay at" Roman pips in, making perfect sense.

"How about we split up into groups? Two groups just do quick recon, and the group of three hunts us down some breakfast" Ruby chimes in with her own idea. We all split up into our groups, and I somehow got stuck on the hunting squad with Blake and Yang. We checked near the outskirts of Vale for any straggling grimm, since they probably wiped out all the animals during their war charge. We did manage to get near a group of young beowolves and deal with them after some time, they were the size of a normal dog and had no armor, so they were probably pups. That was good, but then the alpha strolled over, killing intent clouding the air after it saw our handy work. It lunged at Blake, but Yang demonstrates physical strength beyond my expectations as she leaps in and punches it in the side of the face, altering it's course into a tree. Not missing a beat Blake leaps on it's shoulder and plunges her sword through it's neck. I didn't even have to lift a finger, till they made me carry one of the smaller dead beowolves. After a few days the bodies would start to fade away, so this food was limited. Arriving back where we split off one of the recon teams had returned, Ruby and Weiss. They talked about a white fang hideout they saw, and when Roman and Neo get back, we're going to have a vote to see if checking it out is worth the risk. Something tells me it won't end well, but that could be that little pessimistic voice in the back of my head that developed when Vale was overrun.


	3. Chapter 3

It took a day for our other recon team to get back, but they came with more ammo and dust for us to use. This was great since Ruby had been down to two mags when we left and Yang has no more ammo at all. Roman and Yang use the same type of ammo for their explosives, but no ammo for that was found, only sniper rounds for Ruby, shotgun shells for Yang, and pistol rounds for Blake. And powdered dust for Weiss.

"So guys, me and Weiss spotted this base looking place flying the White Fang flag, we should check it out"

"Red, that sounds like a horrible idea. Most of us are human, and I doubt they would take us. And Blake is apparently a traitor if she's the same one that Adam was going on about, and we are on less than favorable terms after the train incident…" He was talking about the breach of Vale most likely. Dozens of their members had perished in the crash.

"Well, let's vote" Weiss says.

"Aye" Ruby.

"Aye" Yang.

"Aye" Weiss.

"Nay" Roman.

"Aye" Me.

"Nay" Blake.

And Neo nods her head.

Two nays and five ayes. We're off to visit the faunus supremacy group. Annnd there's that pessimistic voice again, rattling off something about us all being decapitated or shot or fed to the grimm. Wonderful. It took us an hour to arrive at a cleared out area that looked like a road, and we followed Ruby all the way to the compound, and We stepped out in front of the main gate.

"Hold it you human fucks!"

I sigh. Then look up, my gaze falling on a sentry with a rifle.

"Yes?" I ask with a hint of sarcasm.

"What the hell do you think your doing?"

"Being threatened by a fellow with a gun, shame you guys hate humans, maybe we could have had a nice talk instead of this" I'm enjoying this, and all the others are just watching us talk.

"Say, could we speak to your commander?"

He keeps his gun on us and activates an earpiece, judging by his hand movements. In moments a man with red hair wearing a trenchcoat with red symbols on the shoulder that connect to a larger one on the back. I knew him from the wanted posters. Adam Taurus.

"Open the gate" The man opens the chain link gate and walks toward us, and despite the mask covering his eyes he seems to be staring right at Blake.

"Welcome back, Traitor"

"Guys, we should go" She says to us quietly, but apparently Adam heard that.

"You won't be leaving here alive miss Belladonna, the rest of you can stay if you hand her over peacefully" One look at Ruby, Weiss, and Yang and I could tell we were in for a fight. They were already in position to fight and everything.

"Well, if it's a fight you want let's get away from the compound, don't want to scratch it"

We kinda had to follow him, cause if we stayed his goons might aid him in fighting us. We followed him out into a large clearing, signs of trees having been cut and uprooted to make it completely flat, maybe he does this often or they have sparring fights her, who knows?

We all, save Roman and Neo, stand at one end, weapons ready, while Adam stands alone on the other end. Oculus allows me to see one's aura as well as them, so I use it on Adam, and search through his aura for any sign of fear, but I find he is relaxed, like he's done this before against stronger people. I suddenly don't like our odds, or being a part of this.

"Let's go!" Yang roars and charges at him, breaking formation, but we all move as a unit, though Yang is the tip of the spear in this situation. Adam draws his sword with a slash when Yang gets ready to throw a punch, and strikes the gauntlet on her other arm with enough force to off balance her, then he raises the sheath of the sword and presses it against her gut as she falls, and a bang is heard. The bullet sends her flying, but it didn't pierce her aura. Seems the rounds weren't designed to deal with hunters but ordinary people like the police. Next Weiss stabs at him and he blocks with the rifle. Weiss was gliding along a path of glyphs and couldn't stop, so he brought the hilt of his sword onto her shoulder as she passed, then used the blade to divert Ruby's scythe blade down it and behind him. Now inside the scythe's arc and close enough to punch Ruby he stops the oncoming shaft of the scythe with his sword, and fires his rifle twice, once in the leg, then again in the chest. I stab at him and he slices up at me, forcing me to teleport behind him, where I aimed a stab at his neck, which he steps to the right of and tucks his gun under his arm, and I received several shots until I fell on my back. Those things might not be killers but damn do they hurt. Yang returns to punch him and he ducks under it and delivers a headbutt to her chin, horns first. This probably gave her a headache and he followed by pressing the rifle barrel against the back of her knee and firing again, then backing off and slicing at her face, her aura making it go from a slash to a painful blunt force hit, but it got through enough of her aura to slightly cut her cheek. Next Blake attacked with both blades, her sheath and katana. She was relentless, but Adam got her with a slice across the stomach, then he leapt back and sheathed his sword again. In came Ruby and Weiss together, Ruby firing a round off at his left half in the hopes of making him move into Weiss' lunge, but he cut the bullet in half with another quick draw, then resheathed the sword once more. Seems that's his primary way of fighting. Weiss' rapier was smacked out of her hands on his next quick draw, the blade hitting hers with such force it wrenched her wrist as she tried to hold on. And then she smacked into he ground, where Adam delivered a swift kick to her ribs, making her roll over. A duck under Ruby's next attack and he delivered an uppercut with his blade, sending her into the air. Then he received a stab from me. Or should have. Bastard side stepped me and caught Oathbreaker between his arm and side with his left arm, then shot me repeatedly till the pain made me let go, then he put the gun back on his hip and grabbed my sword...great, shit's about to go south. He figured out the sword's glyphs quickly, using the teleportation one to get behind Yang and drive the hilts of both swords into her spine and make her fall down. Then a slash of aura hit Ruby's hands and made her lose grip on her scythe, which He batted away with his sword, then slashed her a few times with mine. However the biggest surprise of all was when a cane handle flew from the sides and caught my sword and yanked it out of his hands, so I sprinted and dove, picking it up and using the teleport glyph to dodge a stab. My claymore will taste his blood for this offense. I stood and ran at him, spending great amounts of aura by using the teleportation glyph to dodge all his attacks, allowing me to get hits off on him as well. I ended with a slash to his wrist, which made blood fly out onto the blade, exciting me, then he kicked my leg out from under me and shot me in the head, then the arm, then kicked me again, sending me on my back. Then Uang delivered a firey punch to his face, accented with a shotgun blast. She seemed to feed off pain, the injury from earlier was gone and her aura was increased by a lot, and fire was radiating from her hair. Adam got up and shook it off, and a menacing smile creeped over his face as he sheathed his sword. Yang charged him and the symbols adorning his coat began glowing a bright red as well as symbols on his arms and legs which aren't on the trench coat. His body also seemed to put off a darker red glow.

"YANG!" Blake shouted, and as she threw a punch Adam drew his sword with an upward slash, making connection with her gauntlets and sending her straight into the sky. Ruby dashed forward and he swatted Crescent Rose from her hands and kicked her all the way over to Roman and Neo, and Neo began walking towards the fight. Next Weiss had charged in after finally finding her weapon, and he smacked it up into the air and moved his gun behind his back while turning so it was facing her. The gun fired a blast of violent light, red in nature, and she flew backwards into the forest, the sounds of trees being broken was something quite terrifying.I'm sure she was alive, I did hear her shout Ow quite loudly. Blake was the next receiver, facing a much more deadly hit, as his gun shot both her legs out from under her in quick succession as she charged, and he slashed at her neck, but it had been a decoy, and realizing this he turned quickly while slashing behind himself, cutting into Blake's stomach by a few centimeters, then he smiled as the blood came form the shallow cut, and he delivered a kick to her which he used to pin her to the ground and he began firing repeatedly into her chest, each hit bringing a snapping sound as her ribs broke. I tried to help but as I arrived he quickly turned the gun on me and shot me away like he did Weiss. From my position next to a tree I saw Neo walk right up behind him, so quietly it was like she didn't actually exist, and she actually stabbed him. She pulled a blade out of her umbrella and stabbed him through the arm, making him drop the gun, then she pulled it out and vanished into light, appearing a good fifteen feet away. He turned and began walking towards her, and I swear she stuck out her tongue. He walked up to her and swung, and she blocked with her umbrella, then jabbed at him, which he backed away from, then he stabbed forward, and she deployed the umbrella to block the stab. What the fuck is that thing made of? It not only blocked the stab but forced him to back up some. A rush of aura from his body into his arm and he walks back to Blake, picks up the rifle, and turns to face Neo, who is walking slowly towards him, moving her hips sexually, angering him further. He sheathes his sword in the gun and moves back to her, glowing brighter than ever.

"Your starting to piss me off. So I'm going to kill you" He runs at her and she glides around him and smacks his head with her umbrella. He turns and fires his sword out of the sheath and it collides with her stomach hilt first. Rushing forward he grabbed her by the throat while resheathing the sword, then he tosses her up and draws it, slashing across her chest and spilling a significant amount of blood as the blade easily clips through her aura. Yang then proceeds to fall and land right behind him and he turns around and walks over, positioning the sword for a killing blow when Blake slashes across his back, his aura holding strong and he turns and slashes back, making her leap away, Ruby then comes flying back into the fight, shooting him in the arm and serving to piss him off further. In all the rush I went back into the fight and slashed, hitting him with a wave of aura. He cut that wave apart and shot Ruby, kicked away Blake, then punched me in the face and hit me over the back of the head with his sword's hilt. I probably would have died had Yang not grabbed his leg and pulled his leg out from under him, then she got up before another shot knocked her back down. He hurried up and kicked me away, then shot Ruby once she was fully standing up, then he turns to see Blake still down, and he approaches Neo, sheathing his sword and preparing for the death blow. Right before it came, something no one expected happened. I took a picture with Oculus to see if I could help, but what I saw was something that kind of scared me. Roman had been idly sitting back save getting my sword away from Adam, but right now his aura was surging around him like a miniature tornado, and he had been supressing it, trying to let Neo get the kill, but now, now he was a father, Neo was his daughter, and Adam was the stupid son of a bitch trying to kill her. With all of Roman's aura at his disposal he created a small solid platform behind him at a ninety degree angle and kicked off of it, using all his aura to launch him forward, accelerating him to the speed of a bullet. And he plunged his cane right through Adam's chest and out the other side. I think I pissed myself again when he did that. The exertion made him pass out mere seconds afterwards, but Adam was dead. Or dying. The cane had went through his heart on it's way through the body, and with the speed and force they went flying over to the edge of the circle. It took a minute for what happened to click in our brains, but we all had similar reactions, Yang and Blake ran to get Neo, Ruby vanished into the forest after Weiss, and I teleported repeatedly to Roman.

"Shit man, you nearly killed yourself as well, excerting all that aura" I could hear the others shouting things as I picked Roman up over my back and we started our way into the forest away from the base. Maybe I'll pay more attention to that voice in my head…

Once we were satisfied with the distance between us and them we had probably been walking for an hour or two, and Roman had woken up and was carrying Neo. Weiss was fine, save the fact a tree branch speared her shoulder and kept her out of the fight. We had already patched her arm up and Blake's slight injury had been mostly healed. The ribs however, were still broken, and she was feeling the full effects of it after her adrenaline rush had faded, and was being stabilized by Yang as they walk. Roman sat Neo down, and began removing her jacket, and what we saw was quite disturbing. She was a jigsaw puzzle of carnage. There were light scars, deep scars, stitches, scars from stab wounds, burn marks, some scars traced vital areas and some passed through them. It seems like her still being alive was a result of multiple miracles. Several hundred miracles. Under her necklace was a scar that rounded her neck and seemed like a bitemark, It was like a horror movie, and the only one unphased by all this was Roman. Everyone looked away and in Weiss' case ran a good distance and vomited. I made the mistake of panic activating my semblance, so now I had a permanent detailed photo of her injuries carved into my head.

"There's more under the rest of her clothes" Roman states flatly as he checks this new injury out.

"How is she still alive?"

"I don't know. I've seen her take more death blows than anyone before" His smug accent is gone, replaced with a cold lack of emotion. "She's been shot in the heart, both lungs have been stabbed into, major veins have been cut open, she's been stabbed through the chest by a deathstalker, and poisoned by it, blanketed by nevermore feathers, hunted and mostly eaten by beowolves. She's suffered death before, numerous times, but no matter what she keeps bouncing back. It's like she's been cursed to be overconfident during fights, just so if an opponent can eventually make contact she is doomed to complete failure or death"

"What's the worst that's happened to her, that you know of?"

"See the mark around her neck, the jagged bite like marks?"

"Uh huh"

"A beowolf hunting pack managed to injure her and bit into her neck, and proceeded to eat it. This was how I first found her. The beowolf had almost finished her off, her head was holding on just by the spine, the artery was severed completely. She was just a child at the time, nine years old. I killed the wolves and recovered the body, she was certainly dead. I decided to give her a proper burial" I raise an eyebrow.

"There is a difference between adults and children. I set out to find a coffin maker or make one for her...About twenty minutes into the search she started breathing, so I examined her wound again. It had healed itself on the inside, but the scar stayed, as did all of her scars"

"Woah…"

"Yep" He leaves the wound open and turns away, seeing that everyone but Weiss, who had probably finished her vomiting spree by now was listening, stunned expressions on their face. I had the same expression.

[Holy shit I got carried away with this chapter...especially the fight scene, but that fight scene was in my head for two days now, and I had to write it out. Yep, Neo's immortal. Although I don't know if a head wound would kill her, maybe just leave a bullet scar on her forehead. To explain only vital functions like breathing and blood circulation are repaired, vocal chords aren't really required for life, so after her death they didn't heal. If she hadn't have been killed she might have had them repaired. Hope that answers your questions before you have questions]


	4. Chapter 4

[Further apologies for last chapter, but a bigger interpretation is there, showing the pure lack of leadership and skill the current group has, which I really wanted to get across early into the story, define what was what with their powers. Another thing contributing to the length was trying to fit everyone into one fight. Benefit of having a first person character is not seeing what the others are up to, but in a fight like this he would see every bit. Further addition, Neo is unkillable in this, save a zombie style venting of the brain. So expect a lot more death involving her as the dying person. Guess this also does kind of answer her optimism touched on by last chapter. Now that I think about it why am I typing this out? You guys came to read some survivalist story, not a long ass apology for a longer ass fight. Enjoy]

True to what Roman said, twenty minutes gone by and her body started stitching itself back together, the ripped flesh coming together and melding back into one piece, though a long scar remained from Adam's sword. Kinda makes me sad, live with every mistake you make with no hope of just, not being around for the suffering anymore. Then she literally jumped up, it bothered me that she was up so fast, more like startled but either way…

"So, your alive" She nods while smiling and stretching out her body. I wonder what it's like to die and come back, like is she just sleeping or does she get some visit to the afterlife? I'm not asking, don't want to be too invasive.

"Your alive!" Ruby shouts from her position on a tree, Blake being attended to by Weiss and Yang to see if anything else had been broken, but it seemed to have been just the ribs, setting us at ease. Until Blake started talking.

"White Fang, nearby. They found Adam's body and are searching for us"

"Well, Red, blondie, ice queen, kitty, daughter, ..uh I don't hav a nickname for you yet, we've got some criminals to deal with"

"And a limited number of ammo" Weiss comments, looking like a scrutinizing teacher.

"Like they could deal with us, Adam maybe, but we've got this" Yang smiles at us to try and reassure the dispatching of them, but Neo waves her off and stands up stretching.

"Considering we need to kill them, and I don't think you four want that on your conciouns, let us three handle it" I say, and Neo smiles and takes the blade out of her cane, moving towards the pursuing enemy.

"Or we could let her handle it" Roman says. "She's got quite an affinity for stabbing that cane into people's throats"

"...are su-

"What the hell?!" Screams from nearby, followed by the sounds of assault rifles gathered our attentions, and the rifles stopped shooting one by one. Neo then strolled over cleaning her weapon and smiling as usual.

"Ok...Neo and I will clear out the base, Roman clean up the dead, you four can help if you want, but we will be killing them all"

"Why?" Ruby asks, a small tear in her eye.

"Simply put, the apocalypse seems to be underway with all the kingodms being decimated by grimm, so we won't be getting help. This base has supplies, we need supplies. This could be shelter, we need shelter. Who knows how long before the grimm spread out of Vale and decend on the outlying area, we at least need a place that's defensible"

"I hate to say it but I agree with him" Blake says from the ground.

"Well, we know their going to die, so there's some blood on our hands anyway" Yang gets up and walks over to me and Neo, Neo and I, whatever.

"So, anyone else? No? Well, you guys wait here, we'll be back once we've deaalt with the base"

"Be careful Yang!"

"I won't" Damn is she overconfident. You would think having her ass handed to her would change that.

Moments later we were hanging out on the top of the tallest tree we could find, getting a clear look at the base. Not wanting to waste time I use Oculus, turning a blind eye to my decreased aura status, while Yang seems to have only a slight aura decrease and Neo is back to full. Base was more like a compound, warehouse in the center to keep supplies sheltered, probably functions as a makeshift mess hall as I don't see any other large buildings, save what appears to be a barracks judging from the amount of people moving from it to the warehouse, which probably houses the weapons. There were smaller houses, maybe base commanders living there, excess storage, food, they did have a few greenhouses.

"So, let's run this by the book, Neo sneak in through the back, check the small house like buildings, kill anyone inside. I'm going to draw their attention and blow a few holes in the fence. Yang, I'm going to put a hole right there, when I yell breach I want you to come through that hole and do some damage, anyone you knock out we'll deal with later. If this goes off without a hitch all the repairs we'll need to do will be purely on the fence, but be ready for anything, they probably have more than guns down there. Everyone understand the plan?"

"Yes" And Neo nods, then goes down from the tree. Now we play the waiting game.

[Funny, this story has gotten a lot of favorites fast, didn't expect that. It even has more followers than my main story First Drop, which I urge you to check out if you're looking for other works I've done and am doing. It's one of the few stories I put effort in, and I am trying to put some effort in on this one, but I'm not really good at stories like this, so try and bear with it. -Captain Creeper]


	5. Chapter 5

We sat around watching Neo creep in and out of the small houses, each time there was more blood on the blade in the umbrella. After she had finished almost two thirds of the smaller houses, and I jumped down and moved over to the gate and teleported through it.

"Nice night for a stroll eh?" I say to one of the groups of guards while preparing to stab him in the back.

"It's day time, wait a minute…" He turns around and I stab him in his chest, then duck as one of the other guards takes a swing. A quick uppercut and another stab later and the three lay dead at my feet. Killing people has always been a last resort, but if we let them live they'll be too much of an unstable liability. Now, where do these assholes keep the noise makers? Taking a reconassince view into the warehouse I spot a crate marked 'volatile'. Inside was a grenade belt and an rpg. Oh this is should make some noise alright.

"HEY! GET AWAY FROM THERE!" ...Great...Well, only one way to handle this.

"Hey buddy, catch" I throw him a grenade, precooked to make sure it would detonate in his face. This certainly got some attention and I ran to the closest wall and teleported to the other side. Gonna have to minimize my aura usage, or I'll be running on empty. So with that in mind… "Grenade out!" That drew some more attention and I started tossing grenades everywhere, making sure one blew up the part of the fence Yang was supposed to enter from. Of course my enemies were even angrier and started shooting at me, prompting me to waste the last bits of aura I had to get away. Walking out of the warehouse was an Atlesian Paladin. How the hell did I not see that? I put the rpg round into it and it collapsed onto some of it's allies. Then I heard a clicking sound, similar to when someone pulls the barrel of a pistol back, and I looked behind me at a guard, who motioned for me to move out in the open so his friends could surround me. I followed his orders and looked around at them.

"Sorry for the Breach guys" …

"I said sorry for the BREACH" …

"BREACH GOD DAMNIT!" And then I heard a shotgun go off, well, a pair of guantlets that fire shotgun shells. The guys and girls surronding me opened fire, so I used the teleportation glyph to go up. Since I had no real aura remaining, I had to create some fast. It's possible to speed up aura regeneration, but the amount of pressure it puts on you can sometimes be fatal. I used this three times, to go up out of the fire, over to the side of them, and into a building. Outside I heard gunshots and some blood hitting the wall behind me. I tried to ignore the burning feeling encasing my body, but I knew I needed a break when I noticed blood running from my nose. Looking up wasn't pleasant, as I recieved a hit from something right across my face. I saw a woman holding an axe, and she had just jabbed my face with the handle. Then as usual Neo came to the rescue, stabbing her blade into her chest and relieving her of the axe. She left the umbrella part of her weapon next to me and disappeared out the door.

"God, I'm getting rusty…"

Just because melee fighting was out didn't mean I could take a break however, so I searched the house like building for a gun. I found a semi automatic rifle in the backroom, broke out a window and started shooting at any White Fang member dumb enough to be in the open. My shooting skills were bad, so I was more of a nuisance than a threat, and the pain from my over exertion was also screwing with me, so most of the kills came from the rampaging ball of flames that was Yang, or the silent eliminator, Neo. I found out what happened with that axe, found it lodged in some poor soul's brain. Yang was knocking out more people than she killed, and occasionally Neo would stab one through the neck as she passed, so the take no prisoners law was being enforced. The whole ordeal probably lasted another five minutes or so. Hard to count time by blood splatters and bullet fire.

"So, is that all?" Yang appeared to be running on pure adrenaline judging by how she is starting to tire out. I don't want to be around when it wears off, who knows how she'll react to having killed so many. We walked back and grabbed Roman, and together we cleaned out all the bodies and repaired the fence with some spare cable, then the other three girls came over to the base.

"So, I call this one!" Ruby raced into one of the houses, then walked out shocked. We forgot to clean out Neo's initial kills, and Ruby probably got a good view of a dead man. Yang was starting to break down from the realization she had killed another human so Blake went to help calm her down, and I decided to sleep in the warehouse since it was relatively clean, we got the chunks of flesh out, but the blood from the grenades killed . Sleep didn't come easy to anyone that night, or at least not me. For the first time in years the people I've killed came back to haunt me in my dreams, and from the crying and screaming, the same thing was happening to Yang all night long, and occasionally Ruby.


	6. Chapter 6

(This one took me so long to do, just because I was attempting someone else's perspective. I would like your opinion on if I did a good job, and If I did there may be more chapters form other perspectives)

"Murderer" The voice hisses in my ears and I open my eyes, confusion and a small bit of fear flooding my mind as my eyes rest on the shadow in front of me. "You, Yang Xiao Long, are a murderer"

"Uh...what?"

"You think you can forget what you just done so easily don't you? Gaze upon what you've done"

The fog surrounding my eyes clears, the shadowy figure becoming visible, and her chest had a large indention on it, and she removed her top to show the scorched hole that I caused. Wait, I caused?

"You've killed so many tonight, your soul is no longer innocent. Your no better than us" Around this woman more people appeared, the guards I killed, but in civilian clothing, shirts, jeans, skirts, shorts, they look just like average people, but my mind was still wrapped in fear, growing by the seconds as more and more people appear, and wounds appear on them, multiple holes from shotgun blasts, explosive burns, flames that wrap and scorch their bodies, and I screamed in terror. They were constantly shouting at me, calling me a monster, a murderer, a criminal. "Your no better than a rabid dog!" One of them spat. They were right, I did this, I killed all these people! But then...they had tried to kill me…

"You could have knocked them out, not killed them" This ghost saw right through me, and each time I thought of a decent excuse, they all responded with a way to prevent this, and all the while my hands became bloodier and bloodier, first a drop, then two, until blood flowed freely from my hands. They reached out and grabbed me, and started chanting join us, and began dragging me into the ground. I kicked and screamed, and tried to get them off, but nothing was working. Some point during this I began crying, but I don't know when, I just know I woke up moments later with Blake shaking me awake, tears stained my face and my eyes were bloodshot.

"Yang snap out of it!"

I couldn't even speak, I was still crying.

"Yang you just had a nightmare"

I know that dammit! Telling me isn't going to help.

"Ruby's really worried about you"

At once I stop crying, as I remembered my sister is here, and I'll be damned into hell before I let myself look weak in front of her, especially since we might all die tomorrow.

"Tell her I'm fine"

"You sure your ok?"

"Whether I am or not, you tell her I'm fine"

"Ok" Blake walks away and I try to go back to sleep, but I find that impossible.

That morning we all met up and discussed rationing the supplies, and I was barely paying attention. My nightmare still weighted down my mind. I don't remember the details, but Weiss, Blake, and Niko were walking towards the Warehouse, Ruby was climbing the tallest building, and that left Roman, Neo, and me.

"So, what are we doing?"

"Niko wants us to check around the base for stuff, waste of time if you ask me, they probably kept the important stuff in the warehouse" Roman's taking this seriously, that's scary. Neo nods at what he said then goes off on her own, leaving us still at the main gate.

"So, first time you killed someone eh?"

"Shut up"

"Trying to offer some support, first time tends to haunt you, just don't forget that one important detail blonde"

"And what would that be cigar breath?"

"They were going to kill you, and I promise you they would not care at all after you died. They would have slept like a baby"

"...Yeah, they would have"

"So, when someone is trying to kill you, then don't feel bad about putting them down. The circle of life may be a cruel mistress, but this is how she runs things, death is just nature"

"I feel better now, never thought I would say this but, thanks Roman"

"You thanking me is kinda unsettling…"

"So, if death is natural, what do you think the point of life is?"

"That's an entirely different conversation for an entirely different time"

"Ok then, but don't think your weazling out of the question"

"Got it, is that a homemade flamethrower?"

"Where?"

"Right there, it's got a gas tank strapped to it and a long barrel with a pilot light on the end"

"Well, let's see" I walked over to the jurry rigged incendiary device, pointed it up in the air, and pulled the trigger. Rather than a burst of fire, it shot out a ball of fire…

"Oh, it seems that the second gas can was tar...and it's comming back down!"

"Fuck!" So, this sticky paste of flames was arcing downward now, and who knows where it will land? Well, I saw it land, on a building, right into a cloud of rose petals, and Ruby reappeared on a shorter building, and turned to look at me with a glare on her face. I feel bad now, nearly hitting my sister with a deadly fireball. Next to me Roman was laughing loudly, and when I turned to insult him, I saw Neo also laughing, minus the sound. Feeling embarrassed a bit I dropped the weapon off to Weiss' group, and they had effectively become our R&D team. Upon walking in Niko was still sorting things, but Weiss and Blake had each dismantled something, Looks like Blake had a rifle and Weiss had stripped down a missle launcher, ocassionally having Niko help her figure out how to proceed when she got stuck.

"Hey Yang, give me a hand with this thing"

Looking over at Niko he was taking apart the mech they had, already having opened the casing for the weapons and had taken out the ammo.

"Umm, I have no clue how to take this apart…"

"I just need you to pry that arm off, it's broken"

"Got it boss"

After several hours of ripping things off, placing pieces in piles, and cleaning up a few oil leaks, we had finished dismantling this monster, and several other things with everyone but Ruby's help, she was still keeping watch.

"So...what are we going to do with all this scrap?"

"Well" Niko jumps down off of it and from looking at him I could tell he has either a million ideas, or not a damn clue.

"The hunter school I grew up learning at had a class purely based on creativity in survival situations. I plan on making ammo out of this stuff, and maybe some armor plating for those who want it"

"Cool"

"Now, if you will excuse me, I have some plans to draw up"


End file.
